


shoot, take a panorama of our unfinished story

by lovelylittlelion



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Established Relationship, Feelings, Heavy Angst, M/M, Max is a Soft Boyfriend, One Shot, Self-Esteem Issues, Short One Shot, stan george y'all! president of the protect and love alex club, this is just me trying to cope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:54:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28176498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovelylittlelion/pseuds/lovelylittlelion
Summary: 'Show me everything, so you don't have any regrets.'It sounds a lot like a promise. Alex doesn't like to make promises he might not keep.
Relationships: Alexander Albon/Max Verstappen
Comments: 6
Kudos: 36





	shoot, take a panorama of our unfinished story

**Author's Note:**

> sometimes you just don't want to feel feelings so you write them down instead
> 
> i'm still in denial and it feels like alex will just,, sit down in that goddamn car when the season starts but i guess we can't have everything good in life :(
> 
> lowkey written for myr since she told me to not write this, so i wrote it anyways. enjoy!

It feels wrong. It feels so wrong to not be at the circuit right now, to not sit next to his boyfriend during the press interviews and Alex can’t even manage to smile at the screen when Max appears on tv. He should be there with him.

He never liked the Red Bull suits, but they look even more horrendous this year, with someone other than him in them. He knows he’s being unfair. Checo does deserve to have a seat. Alex just wishes it could be at another team. He misses it.

Not that he misses the team itself. He always knew they thought of him as just a replacement of Max, and it doesn’t hurt as much anymore as it used to do. Max is wonderful. His boyfriend is everything a team could wish for, and Alex hopes they know exactly how amazing he is.

He does miss driving itself. He misses the feeling of a helmet in his hand, the nerves in his stomach before every start, the sound of cars racing and the rush of adrenaline every time he managed to overtake someone.

And most of all, he misses Max. He misses the teasing comments, and the chaste kisses placed on his cheek when no one was looking. He misses seeing his boyfriends smile close up and not on tv, and most of all he misses him waving on track.

He misses being able to celebrate with him. It hurts so much to not be with him right now, but Alex knows nothing compares to the feeling of complete emptiness as soon as he sets foot on the track. There’s a lump in his throat.

Alex blinks. Tears prickle in his eyes. He tears his gaze away from the screen, and he ignores the notifications on his phone. Max texted him. He knows it’s Max. He just doesn’t have the energy to feel the slightest bit better right now.

The tears start rolling down his cheeks as he blinks again. He opens his phone. They always say you take pictures of what you’re most afraid to lose, and Alex knows it’s true when his whole gallery is stacked with photos of Max and him.

A bitter smile appears on his face when he starts scrolling through them. Most of it is pictures of Max. Max sticking his tongue out to the camera, a picture of Max that Daniel took on the plane, drunk Max, Max on George’s birthday, Max-

Alex’s breath stocks. He never expected to see these again. He sits there for a few minutes, vision becoming blurred as memories take over his mind. He closes his eyes and takes a few deep breaths. He can do this. And then he opens his eyes.

Just looking at the pictures hurts. His heart somehow shatters into a million tiny pieces. He knows he’s lost that carefree smile that’s pulling on his lips on the pictures, and it hurts more than he likes to admit.

The first picture could be called plain.

It’s a simple shot. It’s him, standing in front of the one big window at the hotel they booked during their first holiday together, and he’s smiling. He’s wearing a crown of sunshine the sun gave him, and Max told him he had to take a picture because he ‘simply looks too good’.

His heart aches. The glittery eyes the sun gave him are a long lost memory now. It feels like all of this happened a decade ago, and Alex can’t help but wonder if Max thinks about their relationship like that now.

There used to be bad days among the good ones. Just a few, the same few good days he now has. Feeling locked up in a cage, watching how they praise their driver and spit down on the other one. He never wants to think it’s him. That it’s his fault.

But maybe, maybe it is. Maybe it was him who let the crown fall from his head, the same way the carefree smile fell of his lips a long time ago. Tears prickle in his eyes. Alex wants to look away, needs to look away from the picture.

He needs to look away from the loving gaze Max sends him while he takes the picture, and the cheesy smile pulling on his boyfriends lips makes him feel nauseous. He isn’t good enough.

And somehow the praise hurts more then all the downfalls and the hate he gets from the press. The praise makes him wonder if maybe not all of him is bad. It makes him wonder how bad he must be as a person, to have tricked people into thinking he’s good.

He shakily breathes in. The second picture.

It’s him again. Max loves taking photos of him, and the excited chatter flooding his mind makes Alex want to curl up and close his eyes. Max says it’s so he can show everything of him, even the things he’s too embarrassed to tell others.

He’s dizzy. The couch.. is he even sitting down? Alex doesn’t have the energy to check, he just needs to have the energy to keep his head clear for now. He can’t collapse. Max is under so much more pressure and manages to keep his head up high.

Max is everything he can’t manage to be. The corner of his mouth curves into a secret smile. His boyfriend really is so wonderful, and he can’t help but agree with the press for once when they talk about how beautifully Max drives.

Somehow Max doesn’t think he’s way out of his league. Alex knows his boyfriend doesn’t like to show affection, but it still shows how much he cares about him. He can see it in the way Max cooks his favourite food at least every two weeks.

It shows in the way he sends Alex pictures of his cats when he’s not home, in the way he only buys flower-scented candles because he knows Alex hates the rest, and in the way he leaves little notes all around the house with compliments written on them.

The compliments Max doesn’t dare to say out loud. Alex still has all of them, and as much as it hurts to go through all of them, he forces himself to do it when he’s feeling down. When it’s yet another one of the bad days. There’s too many of them to count, so he just counts the good days.

Yesterday was the second good day of this month. He hates how they’re never race days, how they never seem to overlap with the most important days for his boyfriend. Max still hasn’t left him, and it’s a wonder.

Alex blinks. The picture is still there. It’s a photo of him with Moomoo, and he’s half asleep. He still remembers waking up to the shutter of his boyfriends camera, and the feeling of Moomoo hitting him in the face with her tail, just seconds later.

It was the first time Max told him he loved him. There’s tears brimming in his eyes. He told him he loves him, and silenced him with a soft kiss when Alex tried to protest. His boyfriend might not always be enough to silence the anxious whispers in his mind, but he’s trying.

And while Alex will never be enough, he’s more then enough for Max. Sometimes it’s all that matters, sometimes it drives him absolutely insane to hear how his boyfriend still doesn’t get how he’s not a good person.

He’s an imposter, an intruder, completely fake and he gets why Marko kicked him out to replace him with someone who does fit their standards. Max presses kisses to his forehead every time he tells him about it, and holds him until he just _exists_.

It hurts though, and he swipes right again. The third picture.

This one might be his favourite. It’s a picture of him again, a bitter smile on his face. Max took it the day Lewis took his first podium away from him, and Alex almost laughs at how he reacted. Drama queen.

As much as he doesn’t like it, there’s other problems in this world. Like him losing his seat. He winces. Somehow it sounds a lot more real like this, thinking it out loud. Out there for anyone to catch, to see how much it actually affects him.

He shivers. Max never lets him say it out loud. He says it’s just a break, a way to get stronger and to show them everything and even more in 2022.

‘Show me everything, so you don’t have any regrets.’

It feels like a promise, and Alex doesn’t like to make promises he might not be able to keep. He’ll regret it anyways, he knows he’ll feel down when he makes a mistake again and even though he wants to come back stronger than before..

There’s a faint whisper in his head, telling him he could also not go back. That he’s done for anyways. He weakly smiles. Max would tell it to fuck off. God, Max.

Alex misses him so much. He wants to laugh at him, to laugh at the way he never seems to get his fireproofs on just _right_ the first time, and to laugh at the loving glances his boyfriend sends him during breaks, and team meetings, and press interviews.

He knows he does the same. Somehow Max is the sunshine in the darkness, the light of his life and George has told him more then enough times how whipped he is. It’s just very hard to not love Max. To not admire everything he does.

Tears prickle in his eyes. Just a few more hours, and Max is home again. Alex forces the corners of his mouth to go up. His boyfriend deserves it. He also deserves someone better, but he chooses not to comment of that for once. His mind can go to hell.

He’s the one who has Max, and he’s the one Max takes pictures of. And maybe that's enough for now. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading! <3
> 
> come cry with me over alex on tumblr: @alexlatifis

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading! <3
> 
> come cry over alex with me on tumblr: @alexlatifis


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